o one knows how to profiteer off the american people more than obama and his criminal banksters!
obama and his crony banksters are swimming in bailouts, corporate welfare
and profits… their crimes are soaring also!
“But as the Federal Reserve attempts to lower borrowing costs for everyone from households and small businesses to large corporations and Wall Street banks, student borrowers have not been able to benefit.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/student-loan-profiteering-by-obama-on.html
The Education Department's collection efforts are aided by loan default specialists, including NCO Group Inc., a company owned by JPMorgan
*
Obama Student Loan Policy Reaping $51 Billion Profit
Posted: 05/14/2013 11:18 pm EDT | Updated:
05/15/2013 3:49 pm EDT
The Obama administration is forecast to turn a record $51 billion profit this year from student loan borrowers, a sum greater than the earnings of the nation's most profitable companies and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets.
Figures made public Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office show that the nonpartisan agency increased its 2013 fiscal year profit forecast for the Department of Education by 43 percent to $50.6 billion from its February estimate of $35.5 billion.
Exxon Mobil Corp., the nation's most profitable company, reported $44.9 billion in net income last year. Apple Inc. recorded a $41.7 billion profit in its 2012 fiscal year, which ended in September, while Chevron Corp. reported $26.2 billion in earnings last year. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported a combined $51.9 billion in profit last year.
The estimated increase in the Education Department's earnings from student borrowers and their families may cause a political firestorm in Washington, where members of Congress and Obama administration officials thus far have appeared content to allow students to line government coffers.
The Education Department has generated nearly $120 billion in profit off student borrowers over the last five fiscal years, budget documents show, thanks to record relative interest rates on loans as well as the agency's aggressive efforts to collect defaulted debt. Representatives of the Education Department and Congressional Budget Office could not be reached for comment after normal business hours.
The new profit prediction comes as Washington policymakers increasingly focus on soaring student debt levels and the record relative interest rates that borrowers pay as a potential impediment to economic growth. Regulators and officials at agencies that include the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Reserve Bank of New York have all warned that student borrowing may dampen consumption, depress the economy, limit credit creation or pose a threat to financial stability.
At $1.1 trillion, student debt eclipses all other forms of household debt, except for home mortgages. It's also the only kind of consumer debt that has increased since the onset of the financial crisis, according to the New York Fed. Officials in Washington are worried that overly indebted student borrowers are unable to save enough to purchase a home, take out loans for new cars, start a business or save enough for their retirement.
Policymakers also are worried about the effect that high interest rates on outstanding student debt may have on the broader economy. Congress sets interest rates on federal student loans, with rates fixed on the majority of loans at 6.8 and 7.9 percent.
But as the Federal Reserve attempts to lower borrowing costs for everyone from households and small businesses to large corporations and Wall Street banks, student borrowers have not been able to benefit.
Compared to a benchmark interest rate -- what the U.S. government pays to borrow for 10 years -- student borrowers have never paid more, increasing the burden of their student debt as wage increases and yields on investments and bank accounts fail to keep up with the relative increase in student loan interest payments.
President Barack Obama recently asked Congress to tie federal student loan interest rates to the U.S. government's borrowing costs. In a possible sign of congressional intent, leading Democratic senators on Tuesday proposed legislation that would keep existing interest rates on some student loans for the neediest households fixed at 3.4 percent, rather than allowing them to revert back to their original 6.8 percent rate.
The legislation, dubbed the "Student Loan Affordability Act" and proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), aims to help a small subset of future student borrowers who take out loans over the next two years. The bill does nothing for existing student debtors.
"Today's figures from the CBO underscore the urgent need for Congress to prevent the July 1 interest rate hike and address the crushing debt placed on students," said Tiffany Edwards, spokeswoman for Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Rohit Chopra, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official overseeing the regulator's student debt efforts, has warned policymakers to not focus solely on future borrowers.
“The whole student loan problem is a problem that should be of deep concern to this body,” said Richard Cordray, CFPB director, during testimony last month before the Senate Banking Committee. “These are young people that we should care a great deal about.”
“They’re the ones with the ambition, aspirations and dreams, and they're getting saddled with debt that they don't understand,” Cordray said of student borrowers. “It's holding them back and it's making them unable to rise and succeed and become leaders in our society.”
He added: “It's a significant problem and we're going to be doing everything that we can to address it at the bureau.”
The CFPB has been focusing on helping existing borrowers refinance high-rate debt or modify the terms of their loans. In a report earlier this month, the CFPB lamented that borrowers are unable to refinance their obligations after they have graduated from college and secured well-paying jobs.
"Corporate entities, homeowners, and many others have been able to refinance debt at quite low rates, and student loan borrowers are wondering why they can't do the same," Chopra said.
The CFPB suggests that increased concentration in the student loan market may inhibit refinancings and debt workouts. Lenders and the Education Department profit when borrowers pay higher rates than they otherwise would in a normally-functioning market.
Unlike traditional lenders, though, the Education Department's profits are barely dented by loan defaults. For loans made in 2013 that eventually default, the department estimates it will recover between 76 cents and 82 cents on the dollar. Bankruptcy rarely discharges student debt.
The Education Department's collection efforts are aided by loan default specialists, including NCO Group Inc., a company owned by JPMorgan
*
PROBABLY THE ONLY TRUTH OBAMA EVER TOLD
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WAS THAT HE WAS “NOT HERE TO PUNISH BANKS!”… NOPE, AND HE
NEVER HAS. THEIR CRIMES, LOOTING AND PROFITS HAVE SOARED UNDER OBAMA.
YOU WOULD NOT HAVE FOUND OBAMA’S DOJ
GOING AFTER OBAMA’S PALS AT JP MORGAN. HOLDER IS TOO BUSY HISPANDERING FOR LA
RAZA, SUING AMERICAN STATES AND SABOTAGING OUR LAWS AND BORDERS SO THE
OBAMANATION CAN BUILD HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE of ILLEGALS.
“Records show
that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial
industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase
($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”
OBAMA’S OLD PALS
J.P.MORGAN STILL FUCKING OVER CONSUMERS… IT’S LIKE OLD TIMES FOR THE BANKSTERS!
Headline: California lawsuit alleges
illegal collection practices by JPMorgan Chase
Will Bankers at JPMorgan Chase
Finally Pay for Their Misdeeds?
Posted: 05/11/2013 6:19 pm
Will California Attorney General Kamala Harris hang tough in her new lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, the first to target individual bankers accused of defrauding the public? If so, it would be the first time in five years that executives at a major bank have personally paid a price for their misdeeds.
Weekend at Jamie's
Recent revelations have shown the world that JPMorgan Chase comes as close as any institution in America to embodying all this is corrupt, contemptible, and criminal about today's megabanks. This is gratifying, at least on a personal level, since that was not a popular position when we first started writing about JPM and CEO Jamie Dimon a few years back. In those days Dimon was help up as the "good banker" by the president and the press. His institution was considered well-managed and ethical by some of the more shallow members of the popular press, despite the plethora of scandals and crimes like the Alabama bribery case.
Since then we've had a variety of Chase revelations: the "Burger King kids" details behind its massive foreclosure fraud; its confessed criminal mistreatment of active duty military personnel; its deeds in fraudulently propping up a failed mortgage lender (it was like a financial Weekend at Bernie's); and (speaking of "Bernies") its negligence (at best) in the handling of the fraudulent Madoff accounts, which should have triggered all sorts of red-flag warnings.
Now there's the London Whale scandal and what appears to be a subsequent case of investor deception.
The bank wound up paying a staggering $16 billion in fines and settlements over a four-year period, more than 12 percent of its net income during that time.
The Scandal of Our Time
An ethically healthy society would never have lionized a CEO like Jamie Dimon or an institution like JPMorgan Chase. That's why we've called it "the scandal of our time." What explains Dimon's inability to stem the lawbreaking and correct his organization's broken ethical system? The most generous interpretation is that he's an incompetent manager -- so incompetent that, even after numerous suits, revelations, and settlements, "Jamie didn't know" about all the illegal and unethical behavior that continued unabated in his institution.
Needless to say, there are more plausible explanations.
And yet, in those cases where the bank has been called to account with fines and settlements, it has been shareholders and not the wrongdoing bankers themselves,who have paid cost. Ironically, that even happens when the shareholders themselves are the ones who were defrauded. That's why we say that bank fraud is the only crime on Earth in which the victims make restitution on behalf of the wrongdoers.
Is this ugly pattern finally changing?
Meet the Does
Blogger and finance expert Yves Smith thinks so. California Attorney General Kamala Harris is suing JPMorgan Chase and individual bankers (named as "Does 1 through 100") for "commit(ting) debt collection abuses" against Chase credit card holders, "flooding California's courts with... collection lawsuits based on patently insufficient evidence."
The Harris suit calls on the Court to assess $2,500 against each defendant for each violation of "Business and Professions Code section 17200," and an additional $2,500 penalty for each violation perpetrated against a senior citizen or disabled person.
That may not sound like a lot of money for a banker but, as Smith points out, there are more than 100,000 potential violations. Smith writes: "If (Harris) can get the individuals who were supervising the robosigning operations (better yet, the C level execs ultimately responsible) and the complicit law firms, she might bankrupt some well-placed people. This could be extremely entertaining." Indeed. In fact, I'll buy the popcorn.
Walking the Walk
Fro Yves Smith:
"Now Harris has been widely depicted as an opportunist. But she's
kicking up more dirt on the banking front right now than any other official ...
This case has enough headline value that Harris might go a few rounds before
settling. JP Morgan is known for throwing vast amounts of lawyers at opponents
to bury them in legal costs and busywork, so this case, sadly, is unlikely to
go to trial. But if she can get the goods on the right sort of DOES, she might
make some individuals pay in a serious way, which would have far more deterrent
effect.
Adds Smith: "If nothing else, we should applaud what
she's so far and press her to keep going."
I generally agree with all of the above. But some of us have been burned by even the most cautious cheerleading for seemingly promising Wall Street investigations and lawsuits. That's especially been true when the actions in question are being conducted by elected officials with any sort of connection to the Obama White House, an institution which has become synonymous with efforts to protect bankers and restrict their punishment to the merely symbolic.
Attorney General Harris is considered close to the president. She's undoubtedly being either cajoled or pressured (or both) to cave on this issue.
Reaching Out
So I'm going to emphasize the words "press her" in Smith's last sentence. If Harris is determined to see this through, her suit is potentially the kind of sea change in banker law enforcement we've been waiting for. But that means she'll need emphatic expressions of support to strengthen her resolve (and to explain to the Administration why she can't and won't back down).
And if this is merely another publicity stunt, she needs to know that a choreographed cave-in will be very poorly received by her constituents.
Harris therefore deserves strong expressions of support, along with statements that citizens expect her to see this action through -- at least far enough to ensure that the malefactors involved pay some personal penalty for their misdeeds.
(Contact information for Kamala Harris, Attorney General for the State of California, can be found here.)
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
OBAMAnomics: FROM THE MAN THAT HATED
AMERICAN BUT LOVED AMERICAN BANKSTERS:
OBAMA, THE BANKSTER OWNED LA RAZA
DEM
“The response of the
administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to
power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he
subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the
interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers
and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”
OBAMA’S HAREM OF CORRUPT BANKSTERS… DO A GOOGLE
FOR HOW MANY ENDED UP WORKING IN HIS ADMINISTRATION.
“Records show that four out of
Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants -
Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan
Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”
OBAMA, THE BANKSTER OWNED LA RAZA
DEM
“The response of the
administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to
power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he
subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the
interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers
and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”
CRONY KING
OBAMA: CURL: The Obamas live the 1 percent life
*
THE
BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT PROMISED HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS NO real
REGULATION, NO PRISON TIME, AND UNLIMITED PILLAGING OF THE NATION’S ECONOMY!
DESPITE
THE DEVASTATION THESE BANKSTERS HAVE CAUSED AMERICANS, THEIR PROFITS SOARED
GREATER DURING OBAMA’S FIRST TWO YEARS, THAN ALL EIGHT UNDER BUSH. SO HAVE
FORECLOSURES!
Records show that
four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry
giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207)
and Citigroup ($358,054).
*
“Barack Obama's favorite banker
faces losses of $2 billion and possibly more -- all because of the complex,
now-you-see-it-now-you-don't trading in exotic financial instruments that he
has so ardently lobbied Congress not to regulate.”
Is
JPMorgan's Loss a Canary in a Coal Mine?
Posted:
05/16/2012 4:49 pm
That
sound of shattered glass you've been hearing is the iconic portrait of Jamie
Dimon splintering as it hits the floor of JPMorgan Chase. As the Good Book
says, "Pride goeth before a fall," and the sleek, silver-haired,
too-smart-for-his-own-good CEO of America's largest bank has been turning every
television show within reach into a confessional booth. Barack Obama's favorite banker
faces losses of $2 billion and possibly more -- all because of the complex,
now-you-see-it-now-you-don't trading in exotic financial instruments that he
has so ardently lobbied Congress not to regulate.
Once
again, doing God's work -- that is, betting huge sums of money with depositor
funds knowing that you are too big to fail and can count on taxpayers riding to
your rescue if your avarice threatens to take the country down -- has lost some
of its luster. The jewels in Dimon's crown sparkle with a little less
grandiosity than a few days ago, when he ridiculed Paul Volcker's ideas for
keeping Wall Street honest as "infantile."
To
find out more about what this all means, I turned to Simon Johnson, once chief
economist of the International Monetary Fund and now a professor at MIT's Sloan
School of Management and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for
International Economics. He and his colleague James Kwak founded the
now-indispensable website baselinescenario.com. They co-authored the
bestselling book 13 Bankers and a most recent book, White House Burning, an account every citizen
should read to understand how the national deficit affects our future.
Bill
Moyers: If
Chase began to collapse because of risky betting, would the government be
forced to step in again?
Simon
Johnson:
Absolutely, Bill. JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail. Hopefully in the future we
can move away from this system, but right now it is too big. It's about a $2.5
trillion dollar bank in terms of total assets. That's roughly 20 percent of the
U.S. economy, comparing their assets to our GDP. That's huge. If that bank were
to collapse -- I'm not saying it will -- but if it were to collapse, it would
be a shock to the economy bigger than that of the collapse of Lehman Brothers,
and as a result, they would be protected by the Federal Reserve. They are
exactly what's known as too big to fail.
Moyers:
I was just
looking at an interview I did with you in February
of 2009, soon after the collapse of 2008 and you said, and I'm quoting,
"The signs that I see... the body language, the words, the op-eds, the
testimony, the way these bankers are treated by certain congressional
committees, it makes me feel very worried. I have a feeling in my stomach that
is what I had in other countries, much poorer countries, countries that were
headed into really difficult economic situations. When there's a small group of
people who got you into a disaster and who are still powerful, you know you
need to come in and break that power and you can't. You're stuck." How do
you feel about that insight now?
Johnson: I'm still nervous, and I
think that the losses that JPMorgan reported -- that CEO Jamie Dimon reported
-- and the way in which they're presented, the fact that they're surprised by
it and the fact that they didn't know they were taking these kinds of risks,
the fact that they lost so much money in a relatively benign moment compared to
what we've seen in the past and what we're likely to see in the future -- all
of this suggests that we are absolutely on the path towards another financial
crisis of the same order of magnitude as the last one.
Moyers:
Should Jamie
Dimon resign? I ask that because as you know and as we've discussed, Chase and
other huge banks have been using their enormous wealth for years to, in effect,
buy off our politicians and regulators. Chase just had to pay up
almost three quarters of a billion dollars in settlements and surrendered fees
to settle one case alone, that of bribery and corruption in Jefferson County,
Alabama. It's also paid out billions of dollars to settle other cases of
perjury, forgery, fraud and sale of unregistered securities. And these charges
were for actions that took place while Mr. Dimon was the CEO. Should he resign?
Johnson: I think, Bill, there should
be an independent investigation into how JPMorgan operates both with regard to
these losses and with regard to all of the problems that you just identified.
This investigation should be conducted separate from the board of directors.
Remember that the shareholders and the board of directors absolutely have an
incentive to keep JPMorgan Chase as a too-big-to-fail bank. But because it is
that kind of bank, its downside risk is taken by the Federal Reserve, by the
taxpayer, by the broader economy and all citizens. We need to have an
independent, detailed, specific investigation to establish who knew what when
and what kind of wrongdoing management was engaged in. On the basis of that,
we'll see what we'll see and who should have to resign.
Moyers: Dimon is also on the board
of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which, as everyone knows is supposed
to regulate JPMorgan. What in the world are bankers doing on the Fed board,
regulating themselves?
Johnson: This is a terrible
situation, Bill. It goes back to the origins, the political compromise at the
very beginning of the Federal Reserve system about a hundred years ago. The
bankers were very powerful back then, also, and they got a Federal Reserve
system in which they had a lot of representation. Some of that has eroded over
time because of previous abuses, but you're absolutely right, the prominent
bankers, including most notably, Jamie Dimon, are members of the board of the
New York Federal Reserve, a key element in the Federal Reserve system. And he
should, under these circumstances, absolutely step down from that role. It's
completely inappropriate to have such a big bank represented in this fashion.
The New York Fed claims there's no impropriety, there's no wrong doing and he
doesn't involve himself in supervision and so on and so forth. Perhaps, but why
does Mr. Dimon, a very busy man, take time out of his day to be on the board of
the New York fed? He is getting something from this. It's a trade, just like
everything else on Wall Street.
Moyers: He dismissed criticism of
his dual role yesterday by downplaying the role of the Fed board. He said
it's more like an "advisory group than anything else." I had to check
my hearing aid to see if I'd heard that correctly.
Johnson: Well, I think he is advising
them on lots of things. He also, of course, meets with some regularity with top
Treasury officials, and some reports say that he meets with President Obama
with some regularity. The political access and connections of Mr. Dimon are
second to none. One of his senior executives was until recently chief of staff
in the White House, if you can believe that. I really think this has gone far
enough. Under these kinds of circumstances with this amount of loss of control
over risk management, what we need to have is Mr. Dimon step down from the New
York Federal Reserve Board.
Moyers: He told shareholders at
their annual meeting Tuesday -- they were meeting in Tampa, Florida -- that these were
"self-inflicted mistakes" that "should never have
happened." Does that seem reasonable to you?
Johnson: Well, it's all very odd,
Bill, and I've talked to as many experts as I can find who are at all informed
about what JPMorgan was doing and how they were doing it and nobody really
understands the true picture. That's why we need an independent investigation
to establish -- was this an isolated incident or, more likely, the breakdown of
a system of controlling and managing risks. Keep in mind that JPMorgan is
widely regarded to be the best in the business at risk management, as it is
called on Wall Street. And if they can't do this in a relatively benign moment
when things are not so very bad around the world, what is going to happen to
them and to other banks when something really dramatic happens, for example, in
Europe in the eurozone?
Moyers: Some of his supporters are
claiming that only the bank has lost on this and that there's absolutely no
chance that the loss could have threatened the stability of the banking system
as happened in 2008. What do you say again to that?
Johnson: I say this is the canary in
the coal mine. This tells you that something is fundamentally wrong with the
way banks measure, manage and control their risks. They don't have enough
equity funding in their business. They like to have a little bit of equity and
a lot of debt. They get paid based on return on equity, unadjusted for risk. If
things go well, they get the upside. If things go badly, the downside is
someone else's problem. And that someone else is you and me, Bill. It goes to
the Federal Reserve, but not only, it goes to the Treasury, it goes to the
debt.
The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the increase in debt relative to GDP
due to the last crisis will end up being
50 percent of GDP, call that $7 trillion dollars, $7.5 trillion dollars in
today's money. That's extraordinary. It's an enormous shock to our fiscal
accounts and to our ability to pay pensions and keep the healthcare system
running in the future. For what? What did we get from that? Absolutely nothing.
The bankers got some billions in extra pay, we get trillions in extra debt.
It's unfair, it's inefficient, it's unconscionable, and it needs to stop.
Moyers: Wasn't part of the risk that
Dimon took with taxpayer guaranteed deposits? I mean, if I had money at
JPMorgan Chase, wouldn't some of my money have been used to take this risk?
Johnson: Again, we don't know the
exact details, but news reports do suggest that yes, they were gambling with federally
insured deposits, which just really puts the icing on the cake here.
Moyers: Do we know yet what is
Dimon's culpability? Is it conceivable to you that a risk this big would have
been incurred without his approval?
Johnson: It seems very strange and
quite a stretch. And he did tell investors, when he reported on first quarter
earnings in April, that he was aware of the situation, aware of the trade -- he
called it
a "tempest in a teacup," and, therefore, not something to worry
about.
Moyers: He's been Wall Street's
point man in their campaign against tighter regulation of derivatives and
proprietary trading. Were derivatives at the heart of this gamble?
Johnson: Yes, according to reliable
reports, this was a so-called "hedging" strategy that turned out to
be no more than a gamble, but the people involved perhaps didn't understand
that or maybe they understood it and covered it up. It was absolutely about a
bet on extremely complex derivatives and the interesting question is who failed
to understand exactly what they were getting into. And how did Jamie Dimon, who
has a reputation that he burnishes more than anybody else for being the number
one expert risk manager in the world -- how did he miss this one?
Moyers:I've been reading a lot of
stories today about members of the House, Republicans in particular, saying
this doesn't change their opinion at all that we've got to still diminish regulation.
What do you think about that?
Johnson: I think that it is a recipe
for disaster. Look, deregulating or not regulating during the boom is exactly
how you get into bailouts in the bust. The goal should be to make all the banks
small enough and simple enough to fail. End the government subsidies here. And
when I talk to people on the intellectual right, Bill, they get this, as do
people on the intellectual left. The problem is, the political right largely
doesn't want to go there because of the donations. I'm afraid some people, not
all, but some people on the political left don't want to go there either.
Moyers: The Washington Post
reported that the Justice Department has launched
a criminal investigation into JPMorgan's trading loss. Have you spotted -- and
I know this is sensitive -- but have you spotted anything in the story so far
that suggests the possibility of criminality? Dodd-Frank is not in existence
yet, so where would any possibility of criminality come from?
Johnson: Well Dodd-Frank is in
existence but the rules have not been written and therefore not implemented. So
yes, it is hard to violate those rules in their current state. And many of
those rules, by the way, violation would be a civil penalty, not a criminal
penalty. If you violate a securities law -- if you've mislead investors, if
there was material adverse information that was not disclosed in an appropriate
and timely manner -- that's a very serious offence traditionally.
I
have to say that the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange
Commission have not been very good at enforcing securities law in recent years,
including and specifically since the financial crisis. I am skeptical that this
will change. But if they have an investigation that reveals all of the details
of what happened and how it happened, that would be extremely informative and
show us, I believe, that the risk management approach and attitudes on Wall
Street are deeply flawed and leading us towards a big crisis.
Moyers: So what are people to do,
Simon? What can people do now in response to this?
Johnson: Well, I think you have to
look for politicians who are proposing solutions, and look on the right and on
the left. I see Elizabeth Warren, running for the Senate in Massachusetts, who
is saying we should bring back Glass-Steagall to separate commercial banking from
investment banking. I see Tom Hoenig, who is not a politician, he's a
regulator, he's the former president of the Kansas City Fed, and he's now one
of the top two people at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the FDIC.
He is saying that big banks should no longer have trading desks. That's the
same sort of idea that Elizabeth Warren is expressing. We need a lot more
people to focus on this and to make this an issue for the elections.
And
I would say in this context, Bill, it's very important not to be distracted. I
understand for example, Speaker Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of
Representatives, is proposing to have another conflict over the debt ceiling in
the near future. This is the politics of distraction. This is refusing to recognize
that a huge part of our fiscal problems today and in the future are due to
these risks within the financial system that are allowed because the people
running the biggest banks hand out massive campaign contributions across the
political spectrum.
Moyers: Are you saying that this
financial crisis, so-called, is at heart a political crisis?
Johnson: Yes, exactly. I think that a
few people, particularly in and around the financial system, have become too
powerful. They were allowed to take a lot of risk, and they did massive damage
to the economy -- more than eight million jobs lost. We're still struggling to
get back anywhere close to employment levels where we were before 2008. And
they've done massive damage to the budget. This damage to the budget is long
lasting; it undermines the budget when we need it to be stronger because the
society is aging. We need to support Social Security and support Medicare on a
fair basis. We need to restore and rebuild revenue, revenue that was absolutely
devastated by the financial crisis. People need to understand the link between
what the banks did and the budget. And too many people fail to do that.
"Oh, it's too complicated. I don't want to understand the details, I don't
want to spend time with it." That's a mistake, a very big mistake. You're
playing into the hands of a few powerful people in the society who want private
benefit and social loss.
Watch
Moyers & Company weekly on public television. See more web-only features like this at BillMoyers.com
*
Why hasn’t Obama been impeached?
His violations of our borders laws, inducing illegals to vote, sabotage of jobs
for Americans, connections to criminal banksters…. WHAT DOES IT TAKE?
NO WORKS IN THE CORRUPT OBAMA WHITE HOUSE THAT IS NOT
CONNECTED TO THE BANKSTERS THAT OWN OBAMA, OR THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA
RAZA!
THE REASON OBAMA BROUGHT IN DALEY WAS BECAUSE WAS FROM
JPMORGAN, AND AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS.
For much of
Obama’s tenure, Jamie Dimon was known as the White House’s “favorite banker.”
According to White House logs, Dimon visited the White House at least 18 times,
often to talk to his former subordinate at JPMorgan, William Daley, who had
been named White House chief of staff by Obama after the Democratic rout in the
2010 elections.
OBAMA
PROMISED HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS NO PRISON TIME AND NO REAL REGULATION.
DID HE DELIVER?
The JPMorgan scandal also
throws into relief the government’s failure to prosecute those responsible for
the 2008 financial meltdown. Despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and
criminality uncovered by two federal investigations last year, those
responsible have been shielded from prosecution.
Records show that four out of Obama's
top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman
Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup
($358,054).
The JPMorgan debacle
15 May 2012
The
economic and political fallout from JPMorgan Chase’s sudden announcement last
Thursday night that it lost more than $2 billion from speculative bets on
credit derivatives continued to grow on Monday. The biggest US bank announced
the forced retirement of Ina Drew, who headed up the bank’s London-based Chief
Investment Office, which placed huge bets on the creditworthiness of a
collection of US corporations. Other top executives and traders are expected to
be sacked or demoted.
The
bank’s shares fell another 3.2 percent, bringing its two-day market
capitalization loss to nearly $19 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported
that JPMorgan was prepared for a total loss of more than $4 billion over the
next year from its soured stake in credit default swaps—the same investment
vehicle that played a central role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the
government bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG) in
September of 2008.
In
an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday, JPMorgan CEO Jamie
Dimon sought to present the loss as an innocent mistake, resulting from
“errors, sloppiness and bad judgment.” Only a month ago, Dimon, who has led the
public campaign by Wall Street against even the mildest restrictions on
speculative banking practices, dismissed warnings over the massive bets being
made by his Chief Investment Office as “a complete tempest in a teapot.”
The
scale of the loss and the denials that preceded it raise the likelihood that
banking rules and laws against investor fraud and deception were breached.
President Obama, however, rushed
to the defense of JPMorgan and Dimon, declaring on a daytime television talk
show Monday that JPMorgan was “one of the best managed banks there is” and
Dimon was “one of the smartest bankers we got.” At the same time he cited
the bank’s loss as a vindication of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill
that he signed into law in July of 2010. “This is why we passed Wall Street
reform,” he said.
In fact, the JPMorgan debacle
demonstrates that nearly four years after the Wall Street crash nothing has changed
for the financial aristocracy. No measures have been taken to rein in the
banks, which received trillions of dollars in government handouts, guarantees
and cheap loans. The same forms of speculation and outright swindling that led
to the financial meltdown and the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression continue unabated.
The
big banks, such as JPMorgan, have increased their stranglehold over the US
economy. They have recorded bumper profits by withholding credit from consumers
and small businesses, keeping unemployment high, while speculating on credit
default swaps and other exotic financial instruments that drain resources from
the real economy. On this basis, bank executives and traders, including those
at bailed-out institutions, have continued to rake in eight-figure compensation
packages. Last year, Ina Drew made $14 million, and Jamie Dimon took in $26
million.
The Dodd-Frank law trumpeted
by Obama is a fraud, an attempt to give the appearance of financial reform
while enabling the banks to continue their parasitic and criminal activities. A case in point is the
so-called Volcker Rule, named after the former chairman of the Federal Reserve
and economic adviser to the Obama White House, Paul Volcker.
The
rule, incorporated into the Dodd-Frank Act and supposedly one of its most
daring provisions, ostensibly bars proprietary trading—speculation by a bank on
its own account—by commercial banks whose consumer deposits are guaranteed by
the federal government. The idea is to prevent government-insured banks from
speculating with depositors’ money.
But
the regulation as drafted by federal regulators—under pressure from the Federal
Reserve and Obama’s treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, as well as the
banks—would actually allow the type of speculative bet made by JPMorgan in the
guise of a “hedge” to offset risk in the bank’s overall investment portfolio.
The
Volcker Rule, whose precise form is yet to be announced, will do nothing to
halt speculation by government-backed banks using small depositors’ money.
The JPMorgan scandal also
throws into relief the government’s failure to prosecute those responsible for
the 2008 financial meltdown. Despite overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and
criminality uncovered by two federal investigations last year, those
responsible have been shielded from prosecution.
When
Iowa Senator Charles Grassley submitted a letter to the Justice Department
earlier this year asking how many bank executives had been prosecuted in
response to the financial crisis, the Justice Department replied it did not
know because it was not keeping a list.
According
to a study by Syracuse University, however, federal financial fraud
prosecutions have fallen to 20-year lows under the Obama administration, and
are down 39 percent since 2003. Under Obama, the number of financial fraud
cases has fallen to one-third the level of the Clinton administration.
These
facts demonstrate the de facto dictatorship exercised by the financial
aristocracy over the entire political system and both major parties. The Obama
administration, in particular, is an instrument of the most powerful financial
institutions. It has focused its efforts on protecting and increasing the
wealth of the privileged elite while utilizing the crisis to permanently slash
the wages and living standards of the working class.
For much of Obama’s tenure,
Jamie Dimon was known as the White House’s “favorite banker.” According to
White House logs, Dimon visited the White House at least 18 times, often to
talk to his former subordinate at JPMorgan, William Daley, who had been named
White House chief of staff by Obama after the Democratic rout in the 2010
elections.
The
incestuous and corrupt relations between Wall Street, the Obama administration
and the entire political system underscore the necessity for the working class
to build its own mass socialist movement to fight for its interests in opposition
to the ruling elite.
The
bankers responsible for the financial crisis, including Dimon and his
co-conspirators, must be held criminally liable for their lawlessness and held
accountable for the social suffering that has resulted from their actions. The ill-gotten
trillions accumulated by the banks must be expropriated, with full protection
for small depositors and small businesses, and used to provide decent jobs,
housing, health care and education for all.
There
is no way to rein in the banks and end their socially destructive activities
within the framework of the capitalist system. The only way to stop the fraud
and parasitism that go on every day on Wall Street is to nationalize the banks
and run them as democratically controlled public utilities.
Andre
Damon and Barry Grey
FACT: JP MORGAN IS ONE OF BANKSTER-BOUGHT OBAMA’S BIGGEST
PAYMASTERS! HE’S PROMISED THEM NO PRISON TIME AND NO REAL REGULATION.
THERE IS A REASON WHY THE BANKSTERS INVESTED HEAVILY IN
OBAMA’S CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION!
Records show that four out of Obama's
top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman
Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup
($358,054).
Obama: JPMorgan Is 'One of the Best-Managed Banks'
By
Mary Bruce | ABC OTUS News – 2 hrs 31 mins ago
Obama: JPMorgan Is 'One of the …
Lou
Rocco / ABC News
Just
hours after a top JPMorgan Chase executive retired in the
wake of a stunning $2 billion trading loss, President
Obama told the hosts of ABC's "The View" that the bank's risky
bets exemplified the need for Wall Street reform.
"JPMorgan is one of the best managed banks there
is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of
the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion and counting,"
the president said. "We don't know all the details. It's going to be
investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street
reform."
The full interview airs
on "The View" Tuesday on ABC at 11 a.m. ET
While
a powerhouse like JPMorgan might be able to weather an error that the bank's
own CEO called "egregious," the president questioned what might
happen to smaller institutions in similar situations.
"This
is one of the best managed banks. You could have a bank that isn't as strong,
isn't as profitable managing those same bets and we might have had to step
in," he said. "That's why Wall Street reform is so important."
While
touting his efforts to rein in the Wall Street behavior that led to the massive
taxpayer bailout of the banks following the financial crisis, he noted his
administration is still fighting for tough reform.
Pivoting
to November, the president said Wall Street reform is one of the many critical areas
where he and his Republican challenger, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney,
have a different vision for the future.
The
president's full interview airs Tuesday on "The View." Tune into
"World News with Diane Sawyer" tonight for more.
*
Nicole Gelinas
It’s Not About Jamie Dimon
We should look to markets, not men, to govern the economy.
14 May 2012
It’s Not About Jamie Dimon
We should look to markets, not men, to govern the economy.
14 May 2012
On
Meet
the Press
yesterday, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon epitomized what’s wrong with
America’s approach to the financial crisis. The American media and political
elite remain obsessed with personalities, looking for heroes and villains
instead of focusing on what we really need: the dispassionate rule of law that
would allow free markets to flourish. Meet the Press is for politicians,
and Dimon performed like a model one. He spoke in short sentences and
apologized directly: “I was dead wrong,” he offered, for having made a
“terrible, egregious mistake.” Specifically, last Thursday, JPMorgan announced
a $2
billion trading loss
on a derivatives bet.
Theoretically,
anyway, such a loss should be a matter between the bank and investors, not TV
fodder. Yet Dimon’s business—too-big-to-fail
banking—is
no ordinary business. Washington’s willingness to subsidize failure means that
Dimon’s job is as much political risk management as financial risk management. Because JPMorgan depends on Uncle Sam’s backing, one of
Dimon’s key constituencies is politicians and government regulators. And one way to charm regulators—and
the voters who elect the politicians—is through a killer interview.
In
October 2008, the Bush administration, not normally a fan of government
expropriation, forced
nine big banks,
including Dimon’s, to accept $125 billion in TARP money. The banks were deemed
so important that they had to take the money to protect them against failure,
whether they wanted it or not. Since then, the banks
and the government have stayed bound together. President Obama’s Dodd-Frank
financial reform law, enacted two summers ago, has tied the two sides closer
still.
The problems that led to the financial crisis, remember, included investors’
perception—honed over two decades of smaller-scale bailouts—that big banks were
too big to fail. Dodd-Frank has given such banks an official title:
“systemically important financial institutions.”
Another
problem that led to the financial crisis was that, over the years, politicians
and regulators determined that banks had become so good at risk management that
they no longer needed to abide by consistent rules—fixed limits on borrowing,
for example, so that banks could fail without leaving behind so much unpaid
debt that they endangered the economy. Instead, banks could largely do what
their executives wanted, as long as regulators believed, on a case-by-case
basis, that they knew what they were doing.
In
the aftermath of the JPMorgan mess, politicians and reporters have been
invoking the Dodd-Frank law’s “Volcker Rule.” Named after Paul Volcker, the
Federal Reserve chairman from the Carter and Reagan eras, the rule prohibits
banks whose customers benefit from taxpayer-backed deposit insurance from
engaging in “proprietary trading,” or speculation. But the Volcker Rule isn’t a
rule at all: it prohibits behavior that has no set definition. Twenty-two
months after Dodd-Frank became law, regulators have delayed
enforcing the rule
because they still cannot figure out what proprietary trading really is.
Consider how JPMorgan lost all that money: creating derivatives that let it
sell billions of dollars’ worth of protection against the risk that some
corporate securities would default. That sure doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Banks, because they’re lenders, are already at risk if people and companies
default in droves.
But
does selling such synthetic “insurance” constitute proprietary trading?
Michigan Senator Carl Levin, who helped draft the Volcker Rule language, says
it does. Bank officials have argued that such behavior is hedging, which would
be okay under Dodd-Frank.
Real
rules could govern Wall Street, but politicians must give regulators the
backing to create and enforce them. Rather than worry about the Volcker Rule,
politicians and reporters should be focusing on derivatives rules. One reason
that Washington had to bail out the financial system four years ago was that
financial firms such as AIG had taken on virtually infinite risk through the
derivatives markets. Through derivatives, AIG could “sell” protection against
other companies’ defaults with almost no cash down. Lo and behold, that’s what
JPMorgan Chase was doing, too. Regulators should demand that traders—whether
big banks or tiny hedge funds—put a set amount of cash down behind such bets,
curtailing the amount of potential unpaid debt in the financial system.
Regulators should also require that traders execute such transactions on open
clearinghouses and exchanges—so that markets can determine which bets are going
well and which aren’t, and clearinghouses can demand more money from traders to
cover their losses. Such rules empower market signals, not regulatory micromanagement,
to control risk. If such rules were in place, it’s unlikely Dimon would have
visited the White House 18
times in three years,
as he would have had no way to manipulate a restriction that, after all,
applied to everyone.
The
best way to stop bailouts is to limit borrowing and demand transparency. When
markets know that financial firms have put a cash cushion behind their bets—and
where the risk behind such bets lies—they’re unlikely to pull their money out
of the financial system en masse, necessitating a government rescue. The
Volcker Rule, by contrast, adds no such protection against future taxpayer
rescues; all it does is unleash regulators to debate, in private, the
definitions of risk.
Dodd-Frank
gave regulators the authority to impose real rules on derivatives, and the
regulators have done
so. But
lobbyists demanded and secured exceptions, which could eventually prove the
rule. With such loophole-ridden reform, America has hardly set a good example
for Europe, which lags even further behind in enacting derivatives rules. In
fact, JPMorgan Chase may have executed the derivatives deals from London
because the bank perceived London as a looser environment. Moving this activity
around the world so that financiers can play inconsistent rules against one
another does nothing to help the struggling Western economies.
The
media and the politicians, however, would rather discuss people than arcane
issues like financial rules. Look at how politely—almost obsequiously—NBC’s
David Gregory treated Dimon. Gregory asked Dimon: “Here you are, Jamie Dimon,
you’ve got a sterling reputation. . . . How does a guy like you make this
mistake? If this happened at JPMorgan Chase . . . what about all the other
banks out there? If somebody else made a mistake like this, would we be again
talking about too big to fail and taxpayer bailouts?” Then, when asking
delicate questions about potential criminal liability, Gregory unconsciously
switched from “you” to “the bank.” Lowly regulators will hardly be more willing
to take on Dimon and his colleagues.
Focusing
on one man represents bailout thinking. Policymakers continue to be distracted
from the rules needed to protect the economy from the consequences—including
corporate failure—of the bad decisions that individuals can make. Nearly four
years after the financial crisis began, Washington seems to have learned almost
nothing.
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY HAS TAKEN MORE LOOT FROM
CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS THAN OBAMA. HE PROMISED HIS BANKSTERS NO CRIMINAL
PROSECUTION, AND NO REAL REGULATION.
PROFITS FOR BANKSTERS HAVE SOARED UNDER OBAMA, JUST
AS FORECLOSURES HAVE. DURING HIS FIRST 2 YEARS THE BANKSTERS MADE MORE LOOT
THAN ALL 8 UNDER BUSH!
WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?
*
"In general,
these are professional prognosticators," said Ritsch. "And they may
be putting their money on the person they predict will win, not the candidate
they hope will win."
Shaping up to be the most corrupt
administration in American history:
administration in American history:
- Obama’s team:
Not the “best of the Washington insiders,” as the liberal media style
them, but rather, a dysfunctional and dangerous conglomerate of
business-as-usual cronies and hacks
- In the first two
weeks alone of his infant administration, Obama had made no fewer than 17
exceptions to his “no-lobbyist” rule
- Why the fact
that the massive infusion of union dues into his campaign treasury didn’t
trouble him in the least reveals Obama’s credibility as a reformer
- The lack of
unprecedented pace of withdrawals and botched appointments -- and how
getting through the confirmation process was no guarantee of ethical
cleanliness or competence, even as Obama’s cheerleaders were glorifying
the Greatest Transition in World History
- Inconsistency:
How Obama, erstwhile critic of the campaign finance practice known as
“bundling,” happily accepted more than $350,000 in bundled contributions
from billionaire hedge-fund managers
- How Obama broke
his transparency pledge with the very first bill he signed into law --
helping make hostility to transparency is a running thread through Obama’s
cabinet
- Michelle Obama:
Beneath the cultured pearls, sleeveless designer dresses, and eyelashes
applied by her full-time makeup artist, is a hardball Chicago politico
- Joe Biden: It’s
not just that he lies, it’s that he lies so well that you think he really
believes the stuff he makes up
- Treasury
Secretary Geithner: His ineptness and epic blundering -- including how he
nearly caused the collapse of the dollar in international trade with a
single remark
- The appalling
story of Technology Czar Vivek Kundra, the convicted shoplifter in charge
of the entire federal government’s information security infrastructure
- Obama’s “Porker
of the Month” Transportation Secretary, Roy LaHood: An earmark-addicted
influence peddler born and raised on the politics of pay-to-play
- SEIU:
Responsible for installing a cabal of hand-chosen officers who exploited
their cash-infused fiefdoms for personal gain and presided over rigged
elections -- in the process, becoming all that they had professed to stand
against as representatives of the downtrodden worker
- How Obama lied
on his “Fight the Smears” campaign website when he claimed that he “never
organized with ACORN”
- ACORN: How the
profound threat the group poses is not merely ideological or economic --
it’s electoral
- ACORN’s own
internal review of shady money transfers among its web of affiliates: How
it underscores concerns that conservatives have long raised about the
organization
- Liar, liar,
pantsuit on fire: How Hillary Clinton has already trampled upon her
promise not to let her husband’s financial dealings sway her decisions as
Secretary of State
- How even a few
principled progressives are finally beginning to question the cult of
Obama -- even as Obama sycophants in the mainstream media continue to
celebrate his “hipness” and “swagga”
*
GET THIS BOOK!
*
Obamanomics:
How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends,
Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P
CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making
You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs
up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you
wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism
to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate
welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman
Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.”
And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics
is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the
Obama years.”
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows
up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit
exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam.
Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger,
somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book
names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
*
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers.
Investigative
reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and
the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is
delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling
corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s
Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The
Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell
corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government
swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts
deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs,
this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils
down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and
those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will
make your blood boil.
*
Praise for Obamanomics
Praise for Obamanomics
“The
notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of
progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by
day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative
muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big
business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs,
taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama
years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every
time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute
observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama
administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s
populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone
who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every
libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large
corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to
read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions
of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s
understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But
as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more
sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing
everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual,
which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
*
·
Hardcover: 256 pages
·
Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30,
2009)
·
Language: English
·
ISBN-10: 1596986123
·
ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
*
*
ARE AMAZED AT HOW UTTERLY BRAZEN THESE CORPORATE OWNED
POLITICIANS ARE?
GET THIS BOOK!
Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats,
Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
Editorial Reviews
In her shocking new book, Malkin digs deep into the records
of President Obama's staff, revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and
abuses of power throughout his administration.
From the Inside Flap
The era of hope and change is dead....and it only took six
months in office to kill it.
Never has an administration taken office with more inflated
expectations of turning Washington around. Never have a media-anointed American
Idol and his entourage fallen so fast and hard. In her latest investigative
tour de force, New York Times bestselling author Michelle Malkin delivers a
powerful, damning, and comprehensive indictment of the culture of corruption
that surrounds Team Obama's brazen tax evaders, Wall Street cronies, petty
crooks, slum lords, and business-as-usual influence peddlers. In Culture of
Corruption, Malkin reveals:
* Why nepotism beneficiaries First Lady Michelle Obama and
Vice President Joe Biden are Team Obama's biggest liberal hypocrites--bashing
the corporate world and influence-peddling industries from which they and their
relatives have benefited mightily
* What secrets the ethics-deficient members of Obama's
cabinet--including Hillary Clinton--are trying to hide
* Why the Obama White House has more power-hungry,
unaccountable "czars" than any other administration
* How Team Obama's first one hundred days of appointments
became a litany of embarrassments as would-be appointee after would-be
appointee was exposed as a tax cheat or had to withdraw for other reasons
* How Obama's old ACORN and union cronies have squandered
millions of taxpayer dollars and dues money to enrich themselves and expand
their power
* How Obama's Wall Street money men and corporate lobbyists
are ruining the economy and helping their friends In Culture of Corruption,
Michelle Malkin lays bare the Obama administration's seamy underside that the
liberal media would rather keep hidden.
• Publisher:
Regnery Publishing (July 27, 2009)
• Language:
English
• ISBN-10:
1596981091
• ISBN-13:
978-1596981096
No comments:
Post a Comment